A single compute node in a Kubernetes cluster can run many pods and some of these pods could be running CPU-intensive workloads. In such a scenario, the pods might contend for the CPU resources available in that compute node. When this contention intensifies, the workload can move to different CPUs depending on whether the pod is throttled and the availability of CPUs at scheduling time. There might also be cases where the workload could be sensitive to context switches. In all the above scenarios, the performance of the workload might be affected.

If your workload is sensitive to such scenarios, then CPU Manager can be enabled to provide better performance isolation by allocating exclusive CPUs for your workload.

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